The Roots: Illadelph Halflife (1996). "Breaking Emcess Down to Fractions..."

B. Cox reviews The Roots' third studio album, 1996's Illadelph Halflife. After a respectable success and notoriety from their sophomore offering Do You Want More?!!!???!, the hip-hop band and outfit from Philadelphia found themselves moving a little bit away from their live instrumentation 100 percent output and experimented with samples and drum programming. The sound of a more traditional hip-hop album helped to popularize the group with an hardcore hip-hop audience and the emergence of Black Thought and Malik B as A Level emcess let the industry know that the "jazz guys" could stick with anyone in the game. They were assisted by a wide variety of guests; from rappers Common, Q-Tip and Bahamdia and frequent collaborator Dice Raw as well as singers such as Raphael Saadiq, D'Angelo, Cassandra Wilson and instrumentalists like jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman and former Roots crew member Scott Storch.

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HipHopDX: "Philly Gospel" Revisiting The Roots "Illadelph Halflife" 20 Years Later

https://hiphopdx.com/editorials/id.3468/title.phillys-gospel-celebrating-illadelph-halflife-20-years-later#